Born in the wrong era? No. There is no wrong era.

here are the few games that i know to be played primarily at a playground.
i believe that the playground is the place to build the foundations of your athletic ability, and from there to further hone your skills.
it is also one of the first social gatherings for children outside of nursery skool.
here are the games that i know of.
this list is definitely limited, and if i could i would very much like to continue to play these games, even now. if ever anyone knows of other games that you personally enjoy which have not been reflected in this list, please let me know.

The List
(note: rules are flexible, these are merely the main rules)

1. Blind Mice
catcher cannot open his eyes. everyone else cannot touch the floor.
-trains largely finesse and sense and composure
-Crocodile variation: catcher can open eyes when on the floor

2. Good Ol' Catching
count to ten. catch anyone you can.
-trains reflexes and stamina and speed
-variations include block catching and bicycle catching...etc

3. Police and Thief
mulitple 'police'. when 'thieves' are caught, they go to a designated 'jail' area until another thief can free them by tapping them.
-trains reflexes, strategy and stamina

4. Ice and Water
when caught, 'waters' must 'freeze' until another 'water' taps them and melts them.
-trains reflexes, stamina and strategy

5. Poison Ball
throw the ball to catch someone.
-trains accuracy and reflexes

as can be seen, the following activities largely train your stamina, and reflexes adn speed. these are essential qualities of most sports. hence by training from young you can become the ultimate athelete.
think, blind mice gives you the finesse needed in gymnastics, catching, the speed reflexes and stamina in most ball games, police and thief, the foresight in stratgy and evasion and teamwork in catching.
this is ingenious

today is my dad's birthday.
he is 51 now.
and he has still not gone back to church.
it has been 11 years since my parents last attended church regularly i think.
sigh
i was out today so did not get to spend much time with my dad, hopeully tomorrow can go out.
however yesterday i went for lunch with my dad cause i heard from him that my mom was not in a very good mood.
she had argued with ah ma again apparently, or tensions were high between them again...according to my dad, they have been at a 'cold war' for quite a while now over a couple of issues...
and then, to my surprise, before he dropped me and my bro off at church, after he had shared all that about my mom...he said to remember to pray for my mom!
now this left me thinking about 2 things.

1. why is it that my mom and ah ma would reach this state?
2. why would my dad see value in prayer?

for the first i think that the key problem is pride...the beginning of sin... both parties do not want to forgive nor ask for forgiveness. and not just in their relationship, but in many others, i think that it is pride that stops us from doing many things that not only are simple, but will make our relationships more enjoyable as well. a simple thing like saying sorry.
or like being willing to humble ourselves and risk being rejected to get to know people.
sigh, i myself also am guilty of this. a humble person talks very easily with others. i need to learn that.
then how about my dad?
that is something i have yet to find out...maybe it is superstitious, maybe it is because he really understands prayer in his mind, but again pride stops him from stepping forward. maybe he stills prays to God in his quite moments. i don't know. i think i also need to humble myself and start talking to my folks about church...
pls humble me...

for the sake of people.
then and only then will i ever bother about my looks.
otherwise i don't see the whole point about wearing shoes, long pants, 'presentable shirts', combing my hair or what nots...all that stuff people insist on.
somethings are just not practical in singapore.
why wear clothes that make it so unbearably warm?
or why wear shoes when they are so cramped comapared to sandals or slippers or bare feet?
clothes cover you and are meant to be comfortable. that's all.
people who think they know all about you simply by looking at how you dress are shallow.
or when we dress to look like everyone else just to fit in, and feel so uncomfortable in the process.
i really don't see the point.
of course i also do not subscribe to the idea of 'beauty in chaos'. i believe that it is in order that beauty is seen, so there should be some rules to stick by, but that's it. we are free to dress as we wish.
that said, only if it means that students will find me more approachable will i ever dress contrary to my dress sense, or if in order to let parents know that i am 'normal' will i dress 'presentably'.
heh, this is me.

thoroughly depressing.
the one show i clearly remember derrick recommending is the pianist.
i finally borrowed the vcd from lcc a while ago but never came around to watch it cos i was hoping that i could watch it with my dad. but he hates holocaust/war shows that usually are depressing(think life is beautiful or ur usual saving private ryan/blackhawk down..etc) genrally he doesn't like feel-bad movies.
which is exactly what the pianist is.
granted. it is a well directed and SUPERBLY acted show(well done to adrien brody)
but really, most of the show leaves you sadddened knowing that this was the horror and hopelessness of the war. only until the lsat part is there a glimmer of hope for our protagonist.
but seeing how these are based on the memoirs of szpilman, i think it is amazing to note how he was preserved through the whole nightmare.
on so many accounts did he just scrape past death, with most of them seeming like it was all just pure coincidence...
only at the end does he come one on one with the S.S. officer, and yet he still lives...
our life is not our own...want to die also cannot, how we live and how we die is all in God's hands.
now that i think about it, when the officer said, "don't thank me, thank God, he wants us to survive..", there was a lot of truth in that. God could've let Hitler just keep ruling the whole of Europe and keep the world in terror, but He didn't. He could've let the world bring about it's own demise, but he intervened, and will do so until the final judegement.
cool show.

with great power comes great responsibility
if we have the capacity then it is our responsibility to fully utilise that potential.
we may be happy with simple lives, but if our potential is barely touched then it is a sad sad thing.
if we are able to make an impact then we should strive to be able to do so.
these came from a discussion with dad..
if u want to make changes, u need power. education will be the start point to get to that power.
hm....

manga is when an author finally decides to materialize his imagination by transferring his ideas onto paper. hence how characters behave, look and how the story progresses will be at it's purest because it was the author who penned it down.
the only things that we cannot imagine will be the colour of things and the voices of the characters, well, actually...colours can be seen on the cover and the tone of their voices can be inferred from the font used...but nvm..
lots of people tell me that anime is better than manga because things actually MOVE.
well maybe.
i disagree but then again it depends on what people look out for. some people want to see the action of moving pictures.
i don't particularly care for that.
the problem with anime is that it has undergone the influence of many other people apart from the author. hence its manifestation will be a corrupted one in the sense that it was not as the author had originally imagined.
the director will decide how the scenes will progress, the voice actors, how the characters sound and feel, the animators, how the people look and move, the producer, the quality of the aformentioned and the resemblance to the original.
unless of course the author does all these roles and insists on replicating what he has in his mind. in such a case then purity would be retained.
or there never was a manga and the writers created the anime right from their head working as or alongside the director..these are rare cases where there was no manga but the creators just went straight to animation...if i am not wrong, i think ~Here and Then, Now and There~ is one such anime, and an excellant one at that.
otherwise, it is just a matter of how close the anime is to the manga.
because of these views, manga still reigns as top on my list over anime.
the next issue under scrutiny would then be my view on scanlations...

just thought that since i have read that book recently, i'd better make some special mention of it cos it's great book. one of the most captivating i've ever read.
remember this title.

THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY: a nightmare

i have yet to fully grasp the hidden messages packed throughout the story because it is beyond me at the moment. too complex for my brain for now.

but, at least the apparent story i can describe.

it's about an group of men who call themselves the central anarchist organization.
they are led by seven key members called the council of seven days.
each member is named after a day of the week.
it happens that thursday is a detective b desiring the destruction of the organization, and as he ventures into learning more about the other members, he learns some very shocking news about them.

very readable.
amazingly fresh language.
beautifully written.
surprising twists to the story.
deeply philosophical with much implicit messages.

a must read.
G.K. Chestorton.
much influence on Mr Lewis.

In this world, there are many geniuses.
some of whom are men and women with the ability to imagine new worlds in their head, to imagine people in that world, and to imagine stories revolving around those people with all the different dynamics of those worlds.
these are the story-tellers of our age.
there is great excitement to be found in those universes as the characters in them have their many adventures.
in order to experience maximum enjoyment from these peoples' stories, we must be able to imagine what they imagine.
the ultimate form of this would be to go into their head by connecting our brains with thiers. then, the characters would really come alive. their voices, mannerisms, movements, looks, and physics would all be perceived by us, the viewers.
however, this is not possible.
hence the next best alternative.
visual illustrations.
particularly, comics.
specifically, manga.

Stinky Binky's Authentic Manifesto of Manga Ethics

I Believe that:

1. Purity takes precedence over all else.
2. The Purest source is the Author's mind.
3. The Purest Materialization is unattainable.
4. The Purest attainable Materialization is Manga.
5. The Author must be the Artist to retain maximum Purity.
6. Manga is the most accurate measure for Purity available.
7. Anime as a Materialization is Impure.
8. Anime to retain Purity must be Single-handedly produced by the Author.
9. The Author's Mental Language is the Purest.
10. The Purity of a Language is measured according to the closeness of it's Resemblance to the Authors' Mental Language.
11. Appreciating the Author's Progressive Revelation is the Key to Manga Satisfaction.
12. The Satisfaction experienced depends on
-the Duration of the Anticipation for the Revelation.
-the Magnitude of the Significance of the Revelation.
-the Difficulty in the Interpretation of the Revelation.
-the Amount of the Revelation experienced.
13. Spoilers are Bad. Especially without Consent.

A rogue terrorist group has taken over shadow moses island and have the Darpa chief, donald anderson, and Armstech president, kenneth baker, held hostage. they are demanding that the military give them the remains of Big Boss, the man many know as the "Legendary Soldier" or "the greatest warrior of the 20th century".
On shadow moses island, off the coast of alaska in the fox archipelago, there are hundreds of dismantled nuclear warheads at the nuclear disposal facility located on the island, and the terrorists have threatened to launch a nuclear strike if their demands are not met within 24 hrs.
the members of this terrorist group are formerly from the next generation special forces unit in the U.S military called Fox-Hound. of whom Big Boss was the founder and former commander before it was disbanded.
The members include:
- Revolver Ocelot, an expert with hand guns and interrogation specialist, a formidable gunfighter.
- Decoy Octopus, a man who is able to assume the identity of anyone and can copy their likeness down to their blood type, but little is known about him...
- Vulcan Raven, a giant and a shaman, extremely strong and yet at the same time equally perceptive as well
- Psycho Mantis, an extremely gifted psychic who is capable of telekenesis and mind reading.
- Sniper Wolf, a relentless lone sniper who is able to remain in the same position without moving a muscle for weeks while waiting for her target.

and lastly,

- Liquid Snake, the mastermind behind the whole revolt and commander of the terrorists, and expert in all forms of warfare, as described by vulcan raven, "a devil in battle"

the one man sent to infiltrate the facility, rescue the hostages...and if necessary, single-handedly neutralize the terrorist threat is the man with the same code name as the terrorist leader....
SOLID SNAKE.

best char kway teow
penang corner stall that sells chendol.
-$1.70

best chendol
penang corner stall that sells char kway teow
-$1.00

best beefball
joo chiat
-$4-5.00

best sliced fish noodle
GEYLANG LORONG 23
-$2.50!!!

best lamb medallion
cafe de artist, bali,
$6++


best fried fish noodle
maxwell market
-$3.50

Best Hum Jin Beng
maxwell market
-$1.00/7 pcs

best kway teow tng
penang stall in market
-$1.70

best mutton soup
old airport road
-$4.00

best laksa
katong (anyone, all the same)
-$3.50

best ji zhap zhop
penang roadside stall
-$2.00

best red bean soup
penang pulau tikus
-$1.00

best lor bak
penang corner shop
-variable